


Nerdanel: Fire

by ThatFeanorian



Series: 50 Character Studies for 50 Silmarillion Elves (...and Valar... And Maiar) [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Family, Family Issues, Grief, Loss, Love, Madness, Magic, Memory, Sculpting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21771568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatFeanorian/pseuds/ThatFeanorian
Summary: 4th work in my 50 character studies series, Nerdanel grieves the loss of her family and sculpts to remember them.
Relationships: Finarfin | Arafinwë & Nerdanel, Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel, Nerdanel & Sons of Fëanor
Series: 50 Character Studies for 50 Silmarillion Elves (...and Valar... And Maiar) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568458
Kudos: 16





	Nerdanel: Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Nerdanel is the daughter of Mahtan and the wife of Fëanor

It wasn't that she didn't want to follow him, in fact, she had always wanted to follow Feanaro. It had been such from the first time she met him, utterly infatuated with his bright eyes and the way his mind was always at work to such a degree that Nerdanel could almost see the ideas forming in his mind, ready to fall from his lips and spring from his hands as something new, unforeseen, and beautiful. 

Yet it was precisely those qualities which had first attracted her with all their bright shining intrigue, that had finally pushed her away. Some small change her eyes hadn't seen in lovestruck blindness, some alteration gone unnoticed until it was too late. She had always known the fire she had loved and nurtured for so long would take but a spark to devour the one it inhabited. 

But she had seen and known and realized too late. 

Now her family were all gone. Everything she had given to care for them, and all she had done to hold them together, and they had left still, as blind as she had been to the consuming devouring inferno that roared, hidden, beneath the skin of the one she had --still-- loved. She would never forget the look he had given her as he left for that last time, a million emotions locked inside his eyes, and a single unspoken plea, help me, as if he finally knew he was going to burn. 

As Nerdanel picked up her chisel she saw them in her mind's eye, Nelyo's square jaw, Kano's smiling mouth, Tyelko's twinkling eyes, Moryo's constellation-like freckles, Curvo's furrowed eyebrows, Ambarussa's still round childlike cheeks... all stollen, all gone, and above them all the prayer for assistance, the pained and yet still hopeful eyes of fire. She worked day and night for weeks, and slowly around her, pillars of silver stone came to life. She could see her sons returning. 

She didn't speak, eat, or leave the room in which her family existed once more, mere months after she knew they would never come back, their faces painted with such breathtaking detail that the viewer was sure they were alive. 

Nerdanel cried. She couldn't say how many times, only that the tears she shed soaked into the silvery stone and became a part of it, the tears morphing the beauty of the pillars, her family, the sadness becoming an irrevocable part of its existence. 

They had returned now, her sons stood around her immortalized in stone. Nerdanel talked to them sometimes, willing them to move, to speak back, and it broke her slowly each time they didn't. 

There was one more pillar, one more person to create, and Nerdanel supposed that the others waited, as she did, for him. Her chisel sat, unused, in her hands as she weighed in in her fingers, assessing, hoping... Nerdanel stood and approached the last pillar, unchanged, a great stone rectangle waiting to be transformed by her touch.

When she had finished she stood, waited, hoped, prayed, but when she spoke to her family, they still wouldn't speak back. Nerdanel knew then, with finality with anguish, that they were gone, finally and truly as the trees that had given light to hold the broken pieces of her life together.

There was a moment of nothing, then Nerdanel knelt in silver dust, hands bloody and hammer still clenched in her hands. Uncomprehending, she looked up, ready to see her sons, her love, almost ready to speak and to tell her it was alright, they were home, but only the empty room greeted her, and Nerdanel felt her vision grow blurry once more. The silver dust at her feet setted around her, burying her, enveloping her, and her tears soaked into it, turning it to clay.

When Arafinwë found her, still lying on the floor, he reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. Nerdanel eyes no longer shed tears, but the dust at her feet, was filled with them, quivering with the magnitude of the anguish she had shed. 

"Does it still hurt?" He whispered, and perhaps in response to his question, or perhaps in answer to something completely unrelated, she replied,

"Yes." When Nerdanel, Mahtan's daughter sold silver shimming pots, no one questioned it, taking the unique work of her hands and treasuring it in their home, and all who kept the pots would deny that though each night the pots were empty, each morning found them full to the brim with shimmering silver water.

**Author's Note:**

> Words and Notes:
> 
> Feanáro - Feanor
> 
> Nelyo - Maedhros
> 
> Kano - Maglor
> 
> Tyelko - Celegorm
> 
> Moryo - Caranthir
> 
> Curvo - Curufin
> 
> Ambarussa - Amrod/Amras


End file.
